talking smack without backing it up

The competitiveness of sports leads to some great smack-talking sometimes.  You may not hear it as much on the professional level, but sometimes it’s there.  Today we got to witness that, at the 2009 Wimbledon.

To set up the story, Roger Federer played Robin Soderling in the final at the 2009 French Open less than a month ago.  Before that match, Soderling had joked with his coach that nobody beats him 10 times in a row, because he was 0-9 against Federer.  As you know, Federer won that match fairly easily.  After the match, Soderling told everyone about that conversation, even saying it to Federer, and then joked that nobody beats him 11 times in a row.  Which leads us to today’s match, where they met again.

Soderling’s game translates better to grass, so one would expect this match to be closer.  The score was close, even though Federer won in straight sets.  I’m curious what Soderling will say this time…  🙂

You can decide how the world will end!

Recently I came across a news article called Five Ways the World Can End.  (No, I wasn’t searching for it on purpose!   I just happened across it while surfing around. The title drew me in.)

Earth melting from the SunThe picture represents what may happen in about 5 billion years, when the Sun grows so large that it’ll be this close to Earth.   Obviously this will cause the ultimate global warming, and all life will end.  (Ironically, there are scientists already working on this problem, even though we have 5 billion years before it’s an issue.  While it’s good to prepare for the future, there are some other issues we might ought to work on first…)

The article lists some of the standard hypotheses, like a massive asteroid impact, massive volcanic eruptions, nuclear war, black holes, and the expanding sun.  Most of those sound like natural disasters which we would have little control over, except nuclear war, which hopefully won’t ever happen.  But then the article really surprised me.  There’s a link in the article that says:

YOU DECIDE: How Do You Think the World Will End?

We get to decide?!?  Awesome!   I always figured the end of the world would happen when God brings His final judgment to humanity.  Plus, I thought the end of the world was detailed in the book of Revelation in the Bible.  But this is on a news site, so it must be factual, right?  On a side note, I wonder how FOX News got exclusive access to let us vote on how the world will end…  They must’ve paid a LOT of money for the rights to that!

Anyway, I wanted to cast my vote, so I clicked on that link, but unfortunately the comments were already closed.  So I suppose the fate of the world has already been decided…  And that page didn’t even tell us what the winning option was!  Now we’re just left to wonder…

old-school motion capture controller

I’ve heard some people talking about the latest technology in control schemes for video games.  Obviously the Wii’s controllers were a huge success, and I think Wii MotionPlus will make it even better.  But lately there’s been a lot of hype for Microsoft’s new full-body control called Natal and Sony’s new Motion Controller.  There’s a lot of potential for these new systems, and right now the hype is abounding.

But before everyone gets too excited about full-body motion controls, I want to remind you this has been tried before.  There was a product called Sega Activator for the Sega Genesis game console.  With it, your body was the controller.  Here’s the instructional video for it:

It’s fairly obvious why that didn’t catch on.  Now it looks generic.  But consider that this was revolutionary and cutting-edge at the time.  Obviously the company thought it was a great idea and worth the money required to release it.

But all that aside, that doesn’t mean Natal will or won’t work well — it just means we’ll have to wait and see.  I’m hoping they can pull this off, and that the next generation of gaming will be even more immersive and more awesome.

why we should blow up the Moon

moon explosionAfter all this talk of blowing up the Moon, I revisited the petition to blow up the moon, and it’s up to 1109 signatures.  That’s quite a few people, though nowhere near enough to get this kind of legislation to pass.

I decided to glance at some of the recent signatures, to see what people are listing as their reasons for signing it, and I found some interesting excuses.  Here’s some of the most random and creative ones (with the original spelling and grammar):

* How long before it crashes to Earth and kills the dinosaurs again?
* I’m not using it for anything. Why not blow it up?
* Pretty annoying. Never stays the same shape.
* because it has enslaved humans in its evil orbital …… orbit for far to long
* It blocks my view.
* it gives us nothing and if we can blow it up we can study the inside from the outside
* it causes the tides. which causes friction which in turn causes volcanos to erupt, and im living on a volcano.
* Been there, not done it.
* sure destroying the moon would have catastrofic effects but thats the fun of it
* One word: werewolves!
* I am sick of my sandcastles being washed away.
* Because it’s stupid and cheesy.
* The moon is the giant stir-stick in the solution of life, and the planet would look nice with a ring…
* It should be blown up because it’s leeching off our gravity.
* It makes me feel empty inside.
* It’s starting to smell.
* Waste of space…(get it?)
* SOMEONE SET UP US THE BOMB!
* When I was there, it pretty much sucked.
* What if it falls down?
* I hate cheese…
* For too long the moon has looked down on us!
* what the crap if u blow up the moon earth would be destroyed also and id just be plain idiotic

So there you have it — lots of reasons why the Moon should be blown up.  Of course, if we were to consider the argument for not blowing up the Moon, there’s at least one really good reason on that side.  I won’t get into that debate here, but you can ponder it on your own time.  Just don’t actually try to blow up the Moon on your own — there’s some potential side effects that need to be considered first.  (Also at that last link is part of our discussion on how the Moon is broken.)